The acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said it's his job to enforce laws.

The battle between the Trump administration and sanctuary cities is heating up after California recently became a sanctuary state.

"So, why did I have to send more agents to California, because I had to. Because I got to do my job and they just made it a lot harder to do my job," Thomas Homan, acting director of ICE said.

Homan claims the lack of cooperation from sanctuary cities hurts his agency's efforts to go after criminal undocumented immigrants.

"Their risk has been quadrupled. Now, you have to arrest this bad guy in public, when you could have arrested him in the safety and security of a county jail," Homan said.

That's because the state of California does not honor detainer requests.

A detainer request is when the federal government asks local law enforcement to hold a person for an extra 48 hours after they would normally be allowed to leave ---so ice has time to pick them up for removal.